


That Forbidden Feeling

by KatLeePT



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5101823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatLeePT/pseuds/KatLeePT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's almost enough to make her believe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Forbidden Feeling

He stands apart from the other creatures as they gather around their new Queen. He has never quite been close to any one else, so the fact that he is not partaking actively in the celebrations does not bother Maleficent. What does catch her attention, however, is how he has also stepped away from herself and Aurora and has been watching them both, but especially herself, from his beady, black eyes. She steps away from the growing crowd herself, allowing the other Fae folk their time with their cherished and chosen Queen, and walks nearer to him.

He sees her coming. She knows he notices her approach from the widening of his eyes, the shifting of his soft, ebony wings, and the motion he takes to put his feathered back to her. "What troubles you, Diaval?" she asks as gently as she can, but he keeps his back to her and nods his little beak in a way as if to say that nothing troubles him.

"Do not give me that," she commands and waves a hand at him. He is instantly transformed back into a man, but still, he hesitates to look at her. "Tell me," she commands him once more. "What troubles you?"

"I . . . I am not really troubled," he says, and in that word, she can almost hear his caw. "I am . . . perhaps a bit bothered."

"By what?" she questions again. She does not like that he is trying to keep her from being close to him as every step she takes sends him shifting further away. "Stop fidgeting and tell me or I'll turn you into a dog again," she threatens, losing patience.

"I try, and I try," he admits, and he does caw with his frustration, "but I still can not understand you!"

"Understand what?" she demands, although she knows she should not care if he can not understand her. Men, after all, are nothing but trouble and a heartache waiting to happen, even enchanted men, but Diaval has been her loyal subject for years. Unlike most of the others in her land, she never demanded that he follow her. He had given himself to her from almost the very moment she'd saved his life and had never once looked back. He had done many a thing he had not liked, and he had did it all for her. Those moments he'd obeyed her while not liking to because it might hurt Aurora trouble her more than she likes to admit, even silently to herself.

He is trying still to hide his face away, and it is a rather handsome face she has given him. She does have a certain knack with transformations. She knows that, were he in his natural form, his face would be buried deeply into his ebony wings, but in this form, he is bare before her and has no wings in which to hide. "Tell me," she says again, but this time, she manages to make the words sound not quite as much of a demand. They are almost a plea instead.

He looks at her in surprise, but finally he asks, "Why?"

"Why what?" she questions in return, confusion creasing the pale flesh just underneath her horns.

"Why did you not ask me to come with you? Why did you say it was not my place to help you and Aurora?"

"You misunderstood me," she speaks softly, slowly, almost hesitant to admit the truth. He has been so loyal to her, however. The least she can do as he's paid her back so many times over already for saving his life all those years ago is to be honest with him now. "I . . . " This time, it is she who looks away. Her gaze returns to the following of their little beastie, but no one is close enough to hear the admission she is about to voice, no one but him, her most loyal and devoted subject, her truest friend. She looks back at him, catches his questing gaze, and keeps it steadily. "I did not expect to survive that encounter, Diaval. I would not have had you suffer the same fate as I, especially when it was I who brought the curse upon the child."

He cocks his head to one side with the same mannerism he uses so often as a bird. Then, slowly, he begins to boldly close the distance between them. It is now she who feels the need to dart away, to hide her vulnerability from him, but she stands her ground and does not allow her gaze to go from his. "You still do not understand, do you, my Queen?"

"I am no longer Queen," Maleficent reminds him, her large, dark wings shifting with her unease. How she wants to fly from here! But she can not run. She will not run, especially from a bird who owes her his life.

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong, my Queen. You may have given up your throne and title. Aurora may now be their Queen," he nods to the other Fae folk. Maleficent's dark eyes widen and her wings shift again as he drops to one knee before her. He reaches for her hand, and she is too stunned to take it from him. "But," he vows in conclusion, holding to her hand with his dark head bowed in honor, "you will always be my Queen."

Her wings ache with the need to fly as something she hasn't felt in years trumpets in her heart. She tried for so many years to convince herself that her heart was dark, that it was a thing that could not feel love, but Aurora, she now admits if only to herself, is not the only person who has wriggled their way into her heart. Yet whereas Aurora wriggled, Diaval has all but clawed his way through her barriers and into the deepest recesses of her heart. She smiles now at him as unshed tears glitter in her dark eyes.

The words are poised on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't believe in love, not any more. True Love's kiss may exist, but it is between a mother and a child, not a man and a woman. Love is a tool. It is a danger. It took her wings from her before; if she gives into it again, there is no telling what it might take. Diaval already has her heart, and he owns, too, a piece of her soul to which she'll never admit. She can not voice the words, and her smile turns sad and almost regretful as she gazes forlornly down at him. She wants to tell him, but she does not dare.

Instead, at length, she asks, "Fly with me?" He gazes up into her eyes with such utter and complete understanding that, for one frightening moment, she dares think he might actually understand all that she has left unspoken. She starts to wave her free hand at him, but before she can transform him, quickly, he kisses the back of her hand to which he still holds.

Human lips melt away into a bird's beak, but even his beak is gentle against her tender skin, and his gaze . . . His gaze as he still looks worshipfully up at her is so moving, so understanding . . . Her heart hammers, and her mighty wings flap once, assailing her into the air, catapulting her to safety. But he is, as he has been for so long, right beside her.

His small body flies right beside her considerably larger one. She should feel as though she dwarfs him for she does, but she doesn't feel that way at all. Nor does she feel as though he is only a slave. Far below them both, Aurora looks up, smiles at them, and waves.

Maleficent smiles and waves back, but it is to Diaval her gaze goes as she recognizes the warm, comforting feeling wrapping around her heart and soul. It is every bit as comforting as was the return of her wings, if not, perhaps, even more so. She is complete. She is loved, and although she may never say so again out loud, she loves in return.

Aurora looks away, but Diaval looks always to his Queen. He caws, and they swoop together, gliding toward the sun, gliding on higher, closer, closer together, and though neither voices it aloud, in that loving feeling Maleficent so long ago forbade herself. She has her Prince, a Prince of crows, and to some, she will always been a Queen. To him, most especially, she will always be Queen, and by her side, always her loyal subject, he lives happily ever after.

  
**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> All characters within belong to Disney, not the owner, and are used without permission.


End file.
